SELIM01.pdf


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“OF FISH AND FLESH AND TENDER BREEDE 

OF WIN BOTH WHITE AND REEDE”:

EATING AND DRINKING IN MIDDLE ENGLISH NARRATIVE TEXTS

The human condition is subject to a series of everyday
physiological demands -eating / drinking, excreting, reproducing and 
sleeping- some of which lend themselves better than others to
exploitation for literary purposes: those connected with what the Wife 
of Bath calls so neatly, on the one hand, “office” and, on the other, 
“ese of engendrure”, tend to find their literary reflection in Middle 
English in the plain-speaking fabliau genre, in works such as Dame
Siriz, or Chaucer’s Merchant’s, Miller’s or Summoner’s Tales, not 
forgetting, either, the Wife of Bath’s Prologue, sex, of course,
although unspecified being implicit in any narrative dealing with
adultery or suspected adultery (certain romances, for example).
Sleeping, indeed, had already acquired literary status in classical
writings, as the conditio sine qua non for dreaming and for all that 
dreams might signify, and we need look no further than The Nuns’ 
Priest’s Tale and the Parliament of Fowles to judge how productive 
a theme this was to be in Middle English writing both as a subject of 
literary discourse and as a stratagem for literary invention. It is the 
aim of this study to take a look at some examples of the reflection in 
Middle English narrative texts of the remaining physiological necessity 
-eating and drinking- in an attempt to analyse and evaluate the ways in 
which these all too human activities are exploited for literary purposes 



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in the period with which are concerned. Since narrative literature,
almost by definition, tends to occupy itself with the extraordinary, it 
will hardly be surprising if gastronomic allusions in Middle English
texts tend to move between the two poles of excess and default,
rather than centring themselves on the desirable but unexciting golden 
mean.

Excessive eating and drinking, for example -the deadly sin of Gula
or Gluttony- provides an excellent excuse for the Middle English
author to indulge in a little preaching on the subject, in such narratives 
as lend themselves convincingly to the inclusion of moralising contexts. 
Thus Chaucer’s Pardoner, having boasted to the pilgrims of his skill as 
a preacher, demonstrates realistically the truth of his claim by starting 
a story about a group of “riotous” “yonge folk”, whose vices he can 
then proceed to deplore in a fire-and-brimstone sermon, attacking in 
the first place precisely, the sin of gluttony, for they “eten...and
drynken over hir might” in “superfluytee abhominable”. It is no
accident, obviously, that Chaucer has the Pardoner himself insisting 
that before he begins his tale, he should (precisely) “...at this
alestake/...bothe drynke, and eten of a cake”.

In fact, he dedicates the majority of the lines dealing with the evil 
effects of gluttony -stupidity, lechery, gourmandise- to drunkenness, 
singling out for special condemnation the “white wyn of Lepe” which, 
being stronger and cheaper than French wines, had a way of
“creeping subtilly” into these, the resulting heady mixture giving rise to 
great “fumositee” (or indigestion). Like other moralists, he insists on 
the more disgusting results of over-eating and over-drinking: sour 
breath, sterterous breathing and foul sounds at “either ende” of the 
belly, which, with great rhetoric al skill he both personifies and
apostrophizes.



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In Gower’s English narrative poem, the Confessio Amantis, the 
poet likewise dedicates the greater part of the introductory section to 
the Sixth Book, concerning gluttony, to drunkenness, whose
contradictory effects he analyses in some detail, pointing out that it 
can make a wise man foolish, yet turn a fool into a great clerk, a 
phenomenon perhaps illustrated by Chaucer’s Summoner, who when 
“... he wel dronken hadde the wyn,” would “... speke no word but 
Latyn”. However, since Amans (i.e. Gower) is principally concerned 
with love, the text then moves into the world of allegorical imagery, a 
comparison being established between being besotted by wine and
besotted by love! Nevertheless, Gower does manage to include a 
cautionary tale, concerning the Spanish gluttons and drunkards, Galba 
and Vitelus, who not only oppressed all Spain, but also defiled all her 
women -lechery, as the Pardoner points out, being a fruit of
inebriation- before being finally brought to justice and executed dead-
drunk! Both in his allegorical French work Le Miroure de l’Omme,
and in his moral essay in Latin, Vox Clamantis, Gower satirises the 
various off-shoots of gluttony and gourmandise, in terms which almost 
suggest personifications of these abstractions. Of course, the great 
master of such personification is the author of Piers Plowman, who in 
his magnificent evocation of the Seven Deadly Sins in Passus V,
presents us with a memorable Gula, drunk and incapacitated before 
he eventually repents and promises never to eat any more until his 
Aunt Abstinence gives him permission. Langland spares us none of 
the sordid physiological details associated with Gula’s state -urinating,
breaking wind, vomiting- such details, as Jill Mann points out, being 
typical of gluttony satire, the aim being to thus “create an aversion for 
the mountains of food which produce” such effects.1

1.- Jill Mann: Chaucer and Mediaeval Estates Satire. Cambridge, 1973; p. 169.



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The tradition of the personification of the Seven Deadly Sins is, in 
fact, carried on into the late 15th. century by William Dunbar who in 
The Dance of the Seven Deadly Sins, witnesses, in a trance, the 
grotesque dance of the Sins in Hell on Shrove Tuesday. Like the other 
writers already mentioned, it is excessive drinking which interests him 
most: here, the “fowll monstir Gluttony” is seen as being followed by 
drunkards, armed with cans, flagons, cups and tankards, all demanding 
“Drynk!” They are attended by devils who serve them “with hait leid 
to laip”!

Gluttony, of course, affects not only the intellect and the digestive 
system, but also the pocket: lavish eating means lavish spending, and 
the anonymous moralist who composed the 14th. century allegorical 
poem, Wynnere and Waster (Thrifty and Thriftless), in which both 
excessive expenditure and excessive hoarding are criticised, offers us 
an interesting and lengthy description (24 lines) of the kind of dinner 
Waster lays on for his followers, worth says Wynnere, “a ransom of 
silver which is hardly surprising if we think that the menu includes for 
its twelve courses (each dish to be shared by two guests): boar’s 
heads, buck-tails, broth, venison, frumenty, pheasants, pies, mince,
grilled fowls, (of which each guest is given a six-man portion); all 
these to be followed by more roast meat in spiced gravy, halved kids, 
quartered swans, and an infinite variety of birds -as Charles Cooper 
remarks: “our ancestors ate practically everything that had wings,
from a bustard to a sparrow”1 -a remark certainly borne out by
Wynnere’s list, which includes : wild geese, bitterns, snipe, larks,
linnets (sprinkled with sugar!), woodcock, woodpeckers, teal and
titmice, the meal to be rounded off with rabbits, pasties, pies,
mawmenny and custard pies! 

1.- Charles Cooper: The English Table in History and Literature. London, 1929; p. 3.



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Members of the Church, of course, especially monks and friars, 
were closely identified in the Middle Ages with gluttony, but hardly 
Chaucer’s Parson, who “koude in litel thyng have suffisaunce”, and 
who, in his Sermon-Tale, after glossing the uses of Penitence,
analyses the “chief synnes”. and their “braunches and ...twigges”,
including, of course, Gula. Like the Pardoner, he insists particularly on 
drunkenness which is “the horrible sepulture of mannes resoun”, and 
then, echoing St.Gregory, classifies different types of gluttony, for all 
which, of course, the Remedium is abstinence. It is, interestingly, dealt 
with in far fewer lines than any of the other Deadly Sins, so that one 
asks oneself if Chaucer, author of the sympathetic description of the 
Franklin, and “rounde of shap” as he admits himself to be in his 
Envoye to Scogan, was more tolerant of this particular failing than of 
the others? 

Not everyone, of course, can become a prey to gluttony: to eat 
excessively well, as Wynnere insists, you either need to be wealthy 
yourself or to be on good terms with those who are: as Chaucer’s 
Parson puts it: “... riche men been cleped to festes, and povre folk 
been put away and rebuked”, and his Friar prefers to be familiar with 
franklins (and one can’t help thinking of the Franklin) and to frequent 
the rich and “sellers of vitaille”, rather than such “poraille” as beggars 
(like himself) and lepers. Although we do find individual instances of 
secular drunks and gluttons in the Middle English narrative -the miller 
in The Reeve’s Tale, for example, goes to bed so befuddled with ale 
that he is totally unaware of the amorous antics around him, just as the 
Miller-pilgrim’s “wit is (so) overcome” by drink, that he obstreperously 
demands to tell his tale before the Monk’s, and at the wedding of Sir 
Gawain and Dame Ragnell in the romance of the same name, the 
latter, a loathly lady, “ete as moche as six that there wore”, including 
three capons, three curlews and a vast amount of baked foods, all 
which, of course, helps to make her even more loathly! -this specific 



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vice was traditionally and notoriously associated with the clergy in
general, and with monks and friars in particular! We are, therefore, 
moving away from the moralising passage inserted into a narrative 
context, and into the realm of estates satire, satire because it is
referred, precisely to those who ought to know better, to those who, 
like Chaucer’s Parson, should “drawen folk to hevene... / By good 
ensample”.

Chaucer’s Friar, however, frequents “sellers of vitaille”, and the 
friar in The Summoner’s Tale who, according to his own words is “a 
man of litel sustenance”, requires only a capon’s liver and a “shiver” 
of soft bread followed, however, by a roasted pig’s head; indeed, as 
he continues to exalt his frugality, his hypocrisy becomes more
apparent, and we realise that he is expecting far more and far better 
fare from Thomas’s wife. As an anonymous poet in his diatribe
Against Friars (about 1400) remarks, after commenting sarcastically 
on the “weakness” and “simpleness” of their “sustenance”:

I have lived now forty years,
And fatter men about the neres
Yet saw I never than are these freres

Chaucer’s Monk not only has recourse to gastronomic figures of 
speech -invoking “oysters” and “pulled hens”, but also loved “a fat 
swan...best of any roost”, that is to say, one of the choicest dishes of 
the Middle Ages, prepared in a way probably forbidden by his Rule, 
thus revealing himself to be perhaps a gourmet rather than a glutton, 
the choiceness of the swan being reflected by contemporary prices: in 
1309, for example, (at the Installation of the new Prior of
St.Augustine’s, Canterbury), 500 capons and hens cost 6 pounds,
whilst 24 swans cost seven!1

1.- M. E. Whitmore: Mediaeval English Domestic Life and Amusements in the Works of 
Chaucer.  New York, 1972; p. 108, n. 84.



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Not surprizingly, Langland has his contribution to make in this 
context:1 in Book XIII of Piers Plowman, the dreamer is invited to 
dinner by Conscience with Scripture, Learning, Patience and a great 
Divine, and is irritated at the sight of this Master Friar at the high 
table, gulping down his wine greedily and gobbling up innumerable 
dishes of minced meat and puddings, tripe, galantine and eggs fried in 
butter, and wishes that, as in Dunbar’s poem, the dishes were full of 
molten lead! These excesses in this “bloated, round-bellied chamber-
pot of a man”, says Patience, will provoke the usual disgusting
physiological effects, which he then proceeds to enumerate. Of
course, the indignation with such self-indulgence on the part of the 
clergy gains in intensity precisely because they are clergy, who are 
flagrantly flouting the rules of austerity imposed, in principle, on their 
orders; rules, if strictly followed, could be very severe. The Rule of St. 
Benedict, for example, which Chaucer’s Monk found “old and som-del
streit”, laid down that his monks should have for their two daily meals: 
herbs, bread and wine (3/4) of a pint“, and that furthermore “all, save 
the very weak and sick” were to abstain wholly “from eating the flesh 
of quadrupeds”.2 It is hardly surprizing if their reactions thereto may 
have been on occasions excessive: and a charitable interpretation
might see in such fallings by the way, a form of compensation for the 
loss of a normal family life imposed by the rule of celibacy.

Especially interesting in this context is the delightful late 13th or 
early 14th century Anglo-Irish parodic poem, The Land of Cokayne,
for it should not be forgotten that references to eating and drinking in 
the Middle English narrative are frequently exploited for humorous, 
and, as we have been seeing, for satirical ends: in this vision of an 
earthly paradise, tailor-made for monks and friars, and situated to “the 

1.- See Jill Man: “Eating and Drinking in Piers Plowman.” Essays and Studies,  1979.
2.- Whitmore: op. cit., p. 109.



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west of Spain”, the white and grey monks of the “fair abbee”
established therein can break all the monastic rules with a vengeance: 
obedience, celibacy and austerity, including, of course, frugality in
eating and drinking, since,

In Cokaigne is met and drink
Wipute care, how and swink

the food there being “choice” and the wine “clear” at all three meals! 
It is to be noted that the anonymous author insists not only on the 
plentifulness of food and drink in Cokayne, but also on its
accessibility, for a multi-spice tree flourishes in the abbey grounds, 
and four wells constantly gush out not only healing medicinal waters, 
but also sweet spiced wine: better still, like the Hansel and Gretel 
houses of our youthful storybooks, the abbey walls are made of fish 
and meat pies, its roof-tiles of cakes, and its pinnacles of sausages, 
and, rather like our modern self-basting chickens, roasted geese fly to 
the abbey, roasted and begarlicked, ready for eating, whilst larks
cooked in spices drop into your very mouth! What more could one ask 
for? And how different to the herring and eggs allowed to the Black 
Monks at Christ Church, Canterbury on a fish day, or to the bacon, 
pottage bean-soup and bread which was the staple monastic diet in 
general! In fact, the gastronomic delights of this earthfully paradise 
are delightfully and irreverently contrasted even with those offered by 
the traditional Paradise of mediaeval theology, in which there is
nothing to eat, the author affirms, but fruit and nothing to drink but 
water! Notions of paradise are, of course, very personal: for the wolf, 
in the beast-tale, The Fox and the Wolf in the Well, Paradise is 
where there are “bothe shep and get”! After the grim visions of 
gluttony evoked by Langland and, indeed, Chaucer, it comes as a relief 
to see the sin viewed in a comic light. The poem, in fact, has been 
classified as an example of English goliardic verse, the term, of
course, deriving ultimately from Latin gula (OF goliard < L. gula).



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Any reference to large quantities of food in a Middle English
context will immediately bring to mind, of course, Chaucer’s
memorable portrait of the Franklin, since of the 30 lines he dedicates 
to this pilgrim, at least half refer to food and drink: to the excellent 
quality of his wines:

A bettre envyned man was nowher noon

to the abundance and quality of his fare:

It snewed in his hous of mete and drynke

at every season, and to the demands made on the professional skill of 
his cook. This ruddy-faced, white-bearded Santa Claus figure (the 
chromatic combination recalling, perhaps, “the reed and the whit” 
wines), self-confessedly an epicure, is far from the repulsive
embodiments of gluttony evoked by Langland or Chaucer’s Pardoner, 
precisely because of his healthy, sanguine complexion -note that 
Chaucer’s disgusting drunks turn pale in their cups, like both of his 
millers- and, of course, on account of the suggestion of generosity and 
hospitality implicit in the allusions to St. Julian and to his “table
dormant”, always set for company, company such as Chaucer’s Friar, 
for example! The effects of helping himself generously from his own 
table may well be mitigated by his morning custom, specifically
emphasized by Chaucer, of having “a sop in wyn”, that is, a piece of 
toasted bread dipped in wine, a healthy dietetic measure if the 16th 
century Regimen Sanitatis Salerni is to be believed: “wine soppis”, 
we are informed in this treatise, are good for cleaning your teeth, for 
improving your sight, and for curing all forms of indigestion and
“superfluous digestion”.1 It will be remembered that old January, after 

1.- William E. Mead: The Mediaeval English Feast. London, 1931; p. 128.



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his nocturnal labours as a bridegroom, takes “a sop in fyn clarree” at 
dawn. That Chaucer, in attrributing such good living to his Franklin 
was, in fact, following a well established tradition concerning the
epicureanism of this class of men, is confirmed by an interesting 15th. 
century document entitled A Fest for a Franklen, which contains an 
“irreproachable” menu for such an occasion, including, brawn, bacon, 
peas, mutton, chicken, capons, goose, pork, pies, stew, jussel, veal, 
lamb, kid, rabbit, pigeon, doucettes (sweet pies), fritters, apples, pears, 
spices, cakes and wafers spiced with mead and ale and bread and 
cheese -enough, as one critic has put it, to make any “table dormant” 
groan!1

Of course, the Franklin is not the only example in Middle English 
writing of gastronomic “aficiones” being used as a characterisation 
device: Chaucer’s Monk’s swan, as we have seeen, contributes to the 
overall impression of good living that the poet obviously wishes to
convey, and the general moral and physical repulsiveness of the
Summoner is emphasized by his fondness for “garleek, oynons, and 
eek lekes”, and “strong wyn, reed as blood” (a very telling simile 
that!). Similarly, when the nightingale, in the early 13th century debate 
poem, wants to stress the repulsiveness of the owl, she suggests that 
frogs, snails, mice and disgusting creatures are her natural and proper 
diet, to which the owl ripostes that it is a case of the pot calling the 
kettle black since the nightingale lives on a diet of spiders, “foul” flies 
and worms dug out of the bark of trees! One is rather surprized that 
Chaucer, in the General Prologue, should be so silent on the subject 
of the gastronomic tastes of the ruddy-faced, wide-hipped Wife of 
Bath. However, in the prologue to her tale, she herself informs us of 
her fondness for “a draughte of sweete wyn”, associating drinking, as 
other moralists often do, with lasciviousness: “A likerous mouth moste 

1.- Whitmore: op. cit., p. 103.



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han a likerous tayle”, she affirms, adding that lechers know that “In 
wommen vinolent is no defence”!

We hear more about the Prioress’s table -manners than about her 
diet, but one suspects that the “rosted flessh, or milk and wastel-
breed” with which she feeds her little dogs come straight from her 
own table, and she may be as much of a gourmet as the Monk, wastel 
bread, for example, being made with fine white wheat flour as
opposed to rye or barley bread, consumed by the poor and the frugal. 
Frugality of diet, the other gastronomic extreme, may also be used as 
a characterising device, as is obviously the case of Chaucer’s Doctor 
of Physik, who is “mesurable” of his diet:

For it was of no superfluitee,
But of greet norissyng and digestible

Evidently no sops in wine are needed here! With the knowledge of 
medical science afforded by all those medical classics he has read, the 
Doctor, obviously knows that, as the Pardoner puts it:

... many maladyes
Folwen of excesse and glotonyes

We may note the similarity of Chaucer’s vocabulary in both texts: the 
Pardoner condemns “superfluytee abhominable”, and wishes that
Adam, like the Doctor, had been “more mesurable / Of his diet...” 
Chaucer, however, follows up his references to the Doctor’s diet with 
the remark that he “was but esy of dispence”, suggesting that the 
Doctor’s frugality may, in fact, be due to meanness rather than to 
scientific considerations, and the modern English cliché, “cheap and 
nourishing” (“norissyng”) immediately springs to mind! In fact, there 
are no gastronomic allusions in the portraits of those other pilgrims 
most obviously obsessed with gain: the “sclendre colerik” Reeve (as 



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opposed to the embonpoint of the Monk), the Merchant, the Manciple, 
etc.

Chaucer’s widow in The Nun’s Priest’s Tale is quite a different 
matter: here we are in the presence of enforced frugality, due to
poverty, and Chaucer’s negatives concerning her not suffering from 
any of the maladies characteristic of the glutton -gout and apoplexy-,
concerning her not eating “deyntee” morsels or piquant sauces, nor
drinking wine “neither whit ne reed”, marks her out as one of the 
world’s have-nots! Her “sklendre” meals consist of milk, brown bread, 
boiled bacon and an occasional egg -a rather colourless board in
comparison with the rosy wine and flesh tints of the Franklin’s “table 
dormant”, and, of course, a far cry from the brilliant coral, gold, azure 
and jet hues of the real hero of the story -Chantecleer! This,
Chaucer’s single reference to the diet of the poor does prove, at least, 
that he was acquainted with their way of life, as, obviously, was 
Langland, who, like Chaucer, has recourse to negatives when his 
protagonist is faced with the demands of Hunger: “I have no money”, 
says Piers, “to buy pullets, nor geese, nor pigs; nor do I possess the 
wherewithal to make bacon and eggs. What I do have”, he adds, “are 
two green cheeses, a few curds of cream, an oatmeal cake, two bran 
and bean loaves, parsley, potherbs and plenty of cabbages”. These, 
and his cow and calf must keep him and his family alive until next 
harvest-time. What other folk bring to help Piers in his hour of need, is 
of much the same sort: peascods, baked apples, shallots, chervils and 
ripe cherries. The author of Wynnere and Waster has a very clear 
idea of the gastronomic abyss which separates the haves from the 
have-nots: “Let lords live as they will, and lowly men (‘Laddes on 
fote’) as they can”, he suggests; the former will eat bitterns and
swans, wheat-bread and rich broths, the latter, bacon and beef, rye-
bread and grey gruel! Another 14th century narrative text, How the 
Ploughman Learned his Pater Noster, however, contains a more 



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encouraging account of a thrifty ploughman’s store of food, including 
flitches of bacon, butter, eggs, cheeses, malt (for making ale), salt 
beef, onions, garlic, cream and milk. This sounds a little more
promising, but even here we may observe a notorious lack of the fish, 
poultry, and assorted meats and pies which seem to have been so 
prominent a feature of the rich man’s table.

Chaucer has his Parson, in his section on Superbia, rail against 
this kind of “pride of table”, of which, presumably, the Franklin might 
well feel guilty:

Pride of the table (he says) appeereth eek ful ofte; for certes, riche 
men been cleped to festes, and povre folk been put awey and 
rebuked. Also in excesse of diverse metes and drynkes, and 
namely swich manere bake -metes and dishe-metes, brennynge of 
wilde fir and peynted and castelled with papir, and semblable wast, 
so that it is abusioun for to thynke.

Indeed, the Middle English narrative is full of descriptions of great 
feasts in rich men’s houses, the main literary object thereof being, 
precisely, to illustrate the social rank, royal or otherwise, of the
characters in the story, and to amaze the “humble reader” by these 
descriptions of their luxurious way of life. It is to be noted, in any case, 
that such narratives often deal with some extraordinary occasion or 
feast-day, (New Year’s Eve in Camelot in Sir Gawain and the 
Green Knight), a wedding or a family reunion, for example,
permitting thus great flights of culinary fancy! It is perhaps worth
remembering, in this context, that one of the most popular and
productive symbols of mediaeval literature -the Round Table - sprang 
from the world of the great banquet. Arthur made the Round Table, 
Wace tells us in his Roman de Brut, that all might sit equally and be 
served equally at his board. The Round Table was to become,
therefore, a symbol of equality: no one there was, like Chaucer’s 
Knight, or indeed, Bishop Baldwin, in a later Arthurian story (Sir



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Gawain and the Green Knight) “to begin the board” “above”
another. The legendary example was not, however, followed, and
allusions to the dais, or High Table, and the positioning of guests 
“everich in his degree” are frequently to be found in Middle English 
narrative poetry, including Sir Gawain and the Green Knig ht,
Chaucer’s Knight’s Tale and Clerk’s Tale, and Cleanness, whilst 
15th century courtesy books continue to insist on the Ordre of Goyng 
or Sittyng with which the marshal or usher of a banqueting-hall must 
be familiar.

In fact, the Middle English narrative throws quite a lot of light on 
contemporary customs associated with the great banquet, as well as 
telling us about what was actually consumed and how on such
occasions, although allowance must be made for a little literary
exaggeration and idealisation! The use of a fanfare of trumpets, for 
example, to announce the first of the twelve courses to be served to 
Arthur’s guests is described in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight,
and in Cleanness, probably by the same poet, “stentorian trumpets” 
indicate that Belshazzar’s feast is starting in earnest. Chaucer makes 
several allusions to minstrelsy as an essential part of a feast; at
January’s wedding celebration, for example, at King Cambuskan’s 
birthday dinner, and as an entertainment for Duke Theseus’ guests. 
His Parson, however, sees in “curiositee of minstrelcye” an invitation 
to “delyces of luxurie”!

References are sometimes made too to the regiment of servants, 
who, headed by the Steward and the Marshal, were responsible for 
the success of such occasions: thus Chaucer the Pilgrim is of the 
opinion that Harry Bailly would have made a “good marshal in an 
hall”, and he makes passing references in the Squire’s and The
Merchant’s Tales to stewards, ushers and squires. It will be
remembered that the “Squire of Lowe Degree” in the romance,
actually becomes a Marshal. Especially interesting are Chaucer’s



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allusions to the art of carving meat (so plentiful, as we shall see, at 
great feasts), possessed by the Squire, and also by Damian in The
Merchant’s Tale. The ability to carve skilfully was, indeed, highly 
considered as is proved by the existence of treatises on the subjects 
such as John Russell’s 15th century The Connynge of Kervynge and 
The Kervynge of Flesh or the Boke of Kervynge printed by Wynkyn 
de Worde in the early 16th century. We have also the testimony of 
England’s earliest romance, King Horn, in which King Aylmar
instructs his steward to educate his foundling, Horn Child, and teach 
him, among other arts:

Bivore me to kerve,
And of the cupe serve.

Indeed, according to F.J. Furnivall: “manly exercises, manners and 
courtesy, music and singing, knowledge of the order of precedency of 
ranks, and ability to carve,1 were in early times more important than 
Latin and Philosophy.” Interesting in this context, is the affirmation
made in Cleanness that Christ had so fine a force in his fingers that 
he needed no knife when cutting or carving, and broke bread without a 
blade, succeeding better than “all the toles of Tolowse (probably a 
mistake for Toledo)” could attempt to do it. The legend, derived from 
St Luke (xxiv, 35)- “And they told...how (Christ) was known of them 
in breaking of bread” -would appear to suggest that Christ trascends 
the requirement of mediaeval etiquette, that demanded that bread be 
cut, not broken, but as Sir Isaac Gollancz points out, attention is drawn 
to the fact that Christ’s fingers can, in fact, cut.2 In this same poem, 

1.- Frederick J. Furnivall: The Babees Book..., originally published EETS, 1868, reprinted: 
Greenwood Press, New York, 1969; p. iv.
2.- Sir Israel Gollancz: Preface to Cleanness, with a new English translation by Derek 
Brewer.  Cambridge, 1974; p. xvii.



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Abraham is compared to a “steward”, and in the episode recounting 
Belshazzar’s feast, reference is made to the contemporary taste for 
sophisticated table decorations, such as Chaucer’s Parson disapproves 
of: pies and dishes, he says, are “peynted and castellated with papir”. 
Over each guest’s platter at Belshazzar’s feast, we are told, there 
was an arbour intricately cut out of patterned paper pointed in gold, 
and pictures of birds and beasts thereon painted in azure and indigo. 
These platters were of “shining silver”, and King Arthur’s guests in 
Sir Gawain..., likewise have their broth served in “bowls of silver”, 
obviously examples of the “to great preciousness of vessel” that
Chaucer’s Parson likewise deplores. By the 15th century, the
“preciousnesse” has increased and in the late burlesque romance, Sir
Gawain and the Carl of Carlisle, the king invites the Carl in “bowls 
of gold” so solid that no knight can lift them singlehanded, and the 
Court drink their wine out of gold cups holding four gallons or more!

Insofar as the actual menus of such literary banquets are
concerned, there are certainly no lack of detailed descriptions,
although it must be admitted that Chaucer, for example, although fairly 
specific on the subject of the Franklin’s “table dormant”, is fairly
restrained in this respect in other cases, although he does tend to
exaggerate the general sumptuousness of the fare he is referring to. It 
is interesting, in fact, to note that both Chaucer and the Gawain-poet,
apologise, as it were, for not offering a detailed menu of their feasts, 
by means of such rhetorical questions as: “What needeth yow the 
feste to descryve?”, or assurances such as: “Now wyl I of her seruise 
say you no more, / For vch wy¥e may wel wit no wont pat pey 
were,” as if, indeed, they felt the need to justify their inclusion of all 
the gastronomic details, probably because, as will be seen, the
romances did very often dedicate a fair number of lines to the subject. 
However, we learn that King Sarpedoun entertained Troilus and
Pandarus with expensive and “dainty” food, that Queen Dido offered 



23

Aeneas “a feste...ful of dayntees and richesse”, and that at king
Cambuskan’s feast (the Squire’s Tale) “strange broths”, swans and 
young herons were served. The Gawain-poet is likewise restrained: 
insofar as King Arthur’s New Year’s Feast is concerned, we learn 
only that there were delicacies and dainties, “Foysoun of the fresche”,
and both good beer and bright wine. However, the Lenten feast set 
before Sir Gawain on his arrival at Sir Bertilak’s court on Christmas 
Eve, may be abstinential but is anything but frugal: several fine, well-
seasoned soups, followed by grilled fish and fish pies of all kinds,
“subtly sauced”, and plenty of wine! The Gawain-poet likewise
embroiders gastronomically the Gospel of St.Matthew, when he
glosses it in Cleanness: whereas the evangelist’s rich man who
prepares a wedding feast only offers “oxen” and “fatlings”, the
mediaeval exegete mentions as well: bulls, roast boars, “finely
fattened” fowls, partridges, plovers and curlews!

The 15th century romance of The Squire of Lowe Degree is a 
particularly gastronomically orientated text, since the Squire in
question is appointed Marshal of a King’s hall, and we are given
information not only concerning his livery, but also concerning the 
hierarchy of other domestic officers: the steward, usher, panter and 
butler. We are likewise informed as to what the Squire serves the 
king: expensive and “delicate” fare, including partridges, peacocks,
plovers, teal, duck, drake, cocks, curlews, cranes, pheasants, storks 
and snipe (many baked in pies), as also fresh venison and many other 
“delicacies”. It is, in fact, interesting to compare this literary evocation 
of a royal dinner with the real-life 14th century menu or “porweanse” 
preserved in MS Cosin V, III, LL: “For the fest for the king at home for 
his owene tale,” at which he was to be provided with:

1st Course: Venison with frumenty, boars heads, large meat (i.e. 
boiled pork, beef or mutton), roasted swan, roasted fat capons, 
peas, pike, and two “soteltees” (subtleties, i.e. food made to look 



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like something else: Christmas or wedding cake sculpture, birds 
covered with feathers to look alive and sugar sculptures of human 
figures, etc.)
2nd Course: There were likewise to be three different types of 
pottages, plus roast pork, roast cranes, pheasants, herons and 
peacocks: bream, brawn, roast rabbit and another “subtlety.”
3rd Course: German broth, roasted venison, roasted heron,
peacocks, quail, rabbit, partridges, larks, perch, mincemeat, pasties, 
rice, fritters and two subtleties.1

Life, on this count, is certainly larger than literature!

The Squire of Low Degree is an interesting text in this respect, 
since, apart from this more or less conventional list of food served at 
the king’s table, we are likewise offered that of the “goodies” with 
which the king tries to tempt and encourage his love-sick daughter: the 
edible “goodies” consist of wild fowl, green ginger and dates, and
baked venison (not much of a change, one would think, for this
particular princess). The drinkable “goodies” are, however, a different 
matter, since she is to be offered not only spiced wine in general, but 
more specifically: Spanish white wine and malmsey, Italian white
wine, Cretan white wine, raspis, Antioch wine, honey wine, Granada 
wine, Greek wine, muscatel, claret, white wine from La Rochelle,
Alsatian wine and simply red wine her “stomake to defie” (i.e. as a 
cure for indigestion -like the sop in wine!).

Sir Launfal, in the Breton lai, is given spiced wines and Rhenish 
wines by Dame Tryamour, and, of course, vintner’s son as he was, 
there is no lack of “vinolent” references, as we have seen in
Chaucer’s works: Daun John, in the Shipman’s Tale, brings his 
relatives “a jubbe of Malvesye” and some red Italian wine -vernage-,
and, of course, the Shipman himself is used to transporting vin de

1.- Curye on Inglysch. (English Culinary Manuscripts of the fourteenth Century), Ed. by 
C.B. Hieatt and Sharon Butler, EETS, Oxford, 1985; p. 39.



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Bordeaux. Absalon sends Alison a gift of sweet wine, mead and 
spicy ale, whilst anxious old January drinks “Ypocras, clarree and
vernage” on his wedding-night to increase his “courage”. The potency 
of el blanco de Lepe has already been commented on, and Chaucer 
makes several references to the distributing of wine and spices in
elegant households, including Calchas’ tent in the Greek Camp.

Banquetting, of course, means eating in public, and, hence, a social 
occasion, in which the question of table manners will inevitably arise: 
tha number of courtesy books which include instructions on how to be 
“at mete wel-ytaught”, like Chaucer’s Prioress, bear witness to the 
importance of the subject, and the allusion to the loathly lady’s
behaviour at the table in The Wedding of Sir Gawain and Dame 
Ragnell is significant in this respect: not only does she eat
gluttonously, but also, with her “three-inch long nails” “she breke her 
mete ungoodly” -“Therefore she ete alone”!

Of course, feasts, to be successful, need more than guests and 
stewards: the men behind the scenes, the cooks, are even more 
important, and that the culinary art was taken very seriously in the 
later Middle Ages is proved by the number of recipes extant from the 
period, and the literary references to the profession found in Chaucer, 
Gower and others. It is significant, as has often been pointed out, that 
the up-and-coming middle class represented by Chaucer’s guildsmen 
should, precisely, have brought a cook along with them on their
pilgrimage -a cook competent in the skills required to please the
mediaeval palate; for, as a specialist on the subject has observed:

Practically all ordinary meats and game, fish and poultry, as well as 
stewed fruit and desserts of every description, were so loaded with 
cinammon, ginger, cloves, cubebs, pepper, galingale, mace and 



26

nutmeg, one or all, that whatever has been taken as the basis of the 

dish was made practically unrecognisable... 1

Not forgetting, either, the “stamping, straining and grinding” to which 
the basic food was subjected, before being spiced: “The ideal,” says
W. E. Mead, “was that nothing should be left in its natural state”!2

The descriptions of the mediaeval cooks’ activities, therefore,
obviously contribute to the realism of the texts they appear in:
Chaucer’s guildsmen’s cook is wholly credible, and one can
sympathize with the situation of the demanding Franklin’s cook, such 
demands being very much the order of the day if we are to believe 
Gower, who, in his Sixth Book, analyses the “delicat glutton” whose 
chief delight consists in spicy or fancy meats, and whose thanks, 
therefore, are measured only by how well his cook serves his mouth. 
The enumeration of the different culinary operations these literary
cooks must perform is likewise convincing, above all, when compared 
with real-life recipes and household account books. Chaucer’s
Pardoner, as was mentioned, enumerates the different pulverising
operations, the turning of “substaunce into accident”, as he puts it 
humorously, operations with which the Cook-Pilgrim is likewise
familiar, since we are specifically informed that he was a dab hand at 
morteux, (a boiled dish of finely ground meat or fish in broth), and 
“blankmanger” (ground capon with rice and almond milk). Spices are 
also to be associated with Chaucer’s cook’s art, a culinary tendency 
already adumbrated in the Franklin’s cook’s “tart and pungent” sauce! 
As Jill Mann points out, “the portrait of Chaucer’s cook is almost 
entirely constructed on the basis of his estate,”3 although the
“mormal” on his sins endows him with a certain individuality. The 

1.- Mead, op. cit., p. 74.
2.- Ibid., p. 53.
3.- Jill Mann: Chaucer and Mediaeval Estates Satire, p. 168



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profession in general is, of course, being satirised by Harry Bailley, as 
is obvious by his derogatory references to warmed-up pies, cheap 
substitute fillings, and the presence of flies in his shop. The realism of 
such references is borne out by contemporary ordinances concerning 
the sale of putrid food, the passing off of baked beef as venison, and 
of rabbit as everything, by pastry-cooks, whose street cries of “Hot 
pies, hot!” closes Langland’s vivid evocation of the different strata of 
contemporary society assembled in his field “full of folk”, and the 
familiar cry undoubtedly echoes through Chaucer’s affirmation that his 
Pardoner’s wallet is full of “pardons” come “all hot from Rome.”

References to eating and drinking, finally, may also function in the 
Middle English narrative as a means to spark off dramatic incident, or 
to help the plot to progress: the most outstanding example of this 
phenomenon, as mediaeval moralists were not slow to point out, being 
the eating of the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden, which both 
Chaucer’s Parson and his Pardoner, interestingly, ascribe to gluttony 
rather than to disobedience:

For whil that Adam fasted, as I rede,
He was in Paradys;

comments the latter in the introduction to his tale. Indeed, as the 
anonymous author of the Ancrene Riwle  remarks, in a similar context, 
“often... great things have small beginnings”. Thus, for example, the 
weeping of Dame Siriz’s bitch is produced by her being dosed with 
pepper and mustard, and it is this small, but telling detail, that of a dog 
weeping like a human being, that convinces Margeri of the veracity of 
the old woman’s cock-and-bull story of a bewitched daughter. In The
Fox and the Wolf, the fox’s gluttony, his devouring of too many hens, 
produces in him such an insatiable thirst that it befogs his usual
acumen, and he falls into the trap of the well, just as the ale -befuddled



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miller allows himself to be cuckolded in The Reeve’s Tale. The 
pregnant woman’s traditional craving for certain types of food, can be 
used as a justification by May, in The Merchant’s Tale, for climbing 
up into the pear-tree and having an acrobatic rendez-vous there with 
Damian. As early as Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia Regum
Britanniae (1136), a banquet affords the occasion for
Utherpendragon to notice Ygerna, apparently for the first time, and to 
upset her husband by not only constantly smiling at her, and engaging 
her in sprightly conversation, but also by ordering plates of food to be 
passed to her, and by sending his attendants to her with golden goble ts
of wine -and from that particular instance of love at first sight the 
whole Arthurian legend was born!

In fine, allusions to eating and drinking, then, excessively,
insufficiently or idiosyncratically, may be included in Middle English 
narrative writing for varying reasons: for moralizing purposes, for
characterization purposes, to illustrate and exult the wealth of a
character or a social class, to satirise a determined estate or
professional group, to reflect religious customs or the flouting thereof, 
to lend realism to a text, or, on the contrary, to add fantasy thereto, 
and thus to heighten its interest, or, finally, to spark off further
dramatic incident, in the fulfilling of all which functions, moreover,
humour, satire and irony will often be included to endow and enliven 
these manducatory and bibulatory episodes with a further literary
dimension.

Patricia Shaw

University of Oviedo